~ Things you may or may not want to know

Sony A65 review: The first few weeks

I thought long and hard, but my existing Minolta 5D was getting a bit long in the tooth. I’d had it eight years and whilst there was nothing wrong with it and still took great photos, technology had moved on and it was time to get something new, brighter shinier.

So, read the reviews, took into account all the lenses and bits that I had already got for the 5D and made the decision. A Sony A65 it was to be.

Getting one proved tricky – all of the stockists were out. I had to wait and see what the best price I could get would be. I just needed a body so this limited my choice somewhat.

View from the Castle at the Top of Blanes, Catalonia

I eventually picked one up from Jessops (remarkably cheap since their relaunch) at a price no higher than that available on the internet for UK stock. I was fortunate enough to be heading on holiday to Spain for a couple of weeks so this was the perfect testing ground.

What did I find?

Generally the camera was great – loads of things to play with; good, solid feel; didn’t eat batteries. And, of course, some good images.

A natural Lagoon formed by the river Tordera in Catalonia, near Blanes

The photos in this post are some unretouched samples (just resized) taken in less than optimal conditions. The moon shot, by the way, is handheld and cropped. I’ve go some other photos on my gallery site which you can visit here

Issues:

1) Being “left eyed” meant that I kept pressing buttons with my nose

2) I found that I switched on the “artistic pictures” mode too easily and found that they were on for a couple of shots

3) I think I had a dodgy SD card. Some images disappeared form the list of shots and could not be pulled form the card. Changing the card stopped it happening again, but I took far fewer

Decorated Street in Blanes

shots on the new card so it could have been coincidence.

4) Probably related to this was a similar problem when I deleted files. I deleted a movie, for instance and this the reported that all of the other images on the card had gone as well. A few minutes panic and a couple of new images taken and hey-presto, all of the images magically came back again. The same sort of thing also happened when I deleted a panorama. I lost confidence in the deleting process after that and

have not deleted any more images.

Conclusions:

Am I happy?

Yes

Would I buy it again? Yes

Would I choose the same model? I think so – certainly against the 5n range that is out there